In the wake of a 2012 constitutional crisis, concerns remain with the rule of law and judicial independence and stability, including intimidation and harassment of judges. Romanian authorities continue to deny the country housed a secret CIA prison to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects, despite media investigations identifying its former location in Bucharest. Discrimination against Roma is widespread, particularly in housing, where forced evictions of Roma remain commonplace.

National and European Union (EU) leaders failed to address serious human rights concerns in the region amid economic and political crisis in 2012, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2013. Human Rights Watch documented human rights concerns in the EU, highlighting events in 10 member states and EU-level developments in migration and asylum, discrimination and intolerance, and counterterrorism policy.

Romanian legislators should reject a change to the Family Code that would narrow the definition of marriage to one exclusively between a man and woman, Human Rights Watch said in a letter sent today to government officials. The measure would deprive many Romanian families of basic civil rights and introduce inequality into law.

Romania

When I was growing up in Greece, my grandparents often told me that if I didn’t eat my food, they would call the Gypsies to take me away. Sadly, the old myths about Roma snatching babies were revived after police took a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl named Maria into custody in a Roma settlement in Farsala, central Greece, on October 16.

An Afghan migrant is stabbed in the heart on the streets of Athens. Black-shirted paramilitaries linked to Hungary’s third-largest political party march through a Roma neighborhood shouting, “You will die here.” A neo-Nazi gang commits a string of murders of Turkish immigrants in Germany. An ideologue driven by hatred of “multiculturalism” kills 67 mostly young people on a Norwegian Island.

National and European Union (EU) leaders failed to address serious human rights concerns in the region amid economic and political crisis in 2012, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2013. Human Rights Watch documented human rights concerns in the EU, highlighting events in 10 member states and EU-level developments in migration and asylum, discrimination and intolerance, and counterterrorism policy.

This submission will focus only on Human Rights Watch’s key concerns regarding Romania’s compliance with international human rights law in its treatment of children and youth living with HIV. It draws on research and recommendations presented in greater detail in our August 2006 report, Life Doesn’t Wait: Romania’s Failure to Protect and Support Children and Youth Living with HIV

Romanian legislators should reject a change to the Family Code that would narrow the definition of marriage to one exclusively between a man and woman, Human Rights Watch said in a letter sent today to government officials. The measure would deprive many Romanian families of basic civil rights and introduce inequality into law.

On behalf of Human Rights Watch, I urge you to reject the proposed amendment to the definition of the family in Romania’s family code, a legislative initiative that would write discriminatory treatment of families into law.

The Central Intelligence Agency secretly operated illegal prisons for terrorism suspects in multiple locations in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005, according to a report released today by the Council of Europe, a European intergovernmental human rights body.

The European Parliament should condemn European complicity in the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program of “extraordinary renditions” and secret detention of prisoners, Human Rights Watch said today.